Director's Wit Livens up History of the Forest City

Middletown may know her as the face of the Historical Society, giving erudite and witty talks about the city’s connection to the Civil War, but it’s for the whole of her dedication to the community that she was honored earlier this month by the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce.

Deborah D. Shapiro, along with Harry Eben Burr and Gregory R. Shook were named 2011 distinguished citizens at the chamber’s 116th annual awards dinner June 8 at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Cromwell. And Mayor Sebastian Giuliano named June 13 Deborah Shapiro Day in Middletown.

Though the award presentation came as no surprise, when Shapiro first learned of being chosen in February, it was through a mysterious phone call.

“The voice says, ‘I have a question: when was the Civil War and were you in it?’” she laughs. “So by time he got to, ‘were you in it,’ I recognized his voice,” Shapiro recalls.

It was none other than Albert Hamrah, who owns Custom Carpets on Washington Street and is very active in the chamber.

“He headed up all the sports banquets for years,” Shapiro says. “He would bring all these Yankees here and some Red Sox. He’s real good friends with Gene Michael, who was the manager of the Yankees.”

“He told me I was being awarded it and I was really quite surprised. I started crying,” she recalls.

Shapiro, who grew up in Ohio, has lived in Middletown since 1975, when she joined her husband, the late Daniel Zachary Shapiro, as a lawyer at Shapiro Law Offices on Court Street. She still practices general law there, with her daughter Sarah H. Shapiro of Middletown.

At the June 2 awards banquet, Shapiro’s entire family proudly shared her table.

“I was really gratified by all the people who were friends of mine who came,” Shapiro says. “It was really nice. I had a few tables of friends and my family.”

Her daughter Suzanne came up from Brooklyn, N.Y., where she works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a costume historian.

She’s proud both daughters share her love of the law and history.

And perhaps her humor, for which she’s known.

“One of funny things I said when I was thanking the chamber at the beginning was how honored I was. I said, ‘next to going to the White House with the UConn Basketball team,’ (because that’s what Larry McHugh, president of the chamber did) ‘it is the most distinguished honor in the whole county,’ so that got a lot of laughs,” Shapiro says.

That was her first joke.

“In the Junior Women’s Club, when the kids were little, we used to dress them up in historical costumes and take them around to the convalescent homes to cheer up the patients, and so my kids every year would go to one, and then one year, Suzanne, she must have been 6 or 7 years old, she comes home and she says, ‘oh, the one we went to today, Mom, that was the best. It was clean, it was pretty, it was nice. I could live here some day when I’m old.’”

“So I said, ‘they’re still talking about the convalescent homes, but it’s more in terms of where they’re going to put me when I have a dotty moment,’” Shapiro says.

“And the whole place, they just broke up on that one,” she recalls with a smile.

Among her many volunteer efforts, Shapiro was chairman of the Farm Hill School Building Committee, the UConn Extension Council Board of Directors, the Russell Library Board of Trustees, the Godfrey Library Board of Directors and the Middlesex United Way's Central Allocation Committee an Board of Directors.

But its the General Mansfield House that has captured her heart. "This is the place where I’ve devoted the most time, not only just recently, but I've been active here since I joined in 1978, so it's been a long time."

Even though many devoted history buffs, researchers and curators have been drawn to the historical society over the years from Wesleyan University and locally, volunteers are needed.

"We could always use more volunteers, docents and people to help in the yard, people to help catalogue the collection," Shapiro says, "and members."

Other distinguished citizens are Burr, who has volunteered with Middlesex United Way for 38 years, is chair of the Chamber’s Prevention Council and member of the Board of Directors Executive Council, among other accomplishments; and Shook, president and CEO of Essex Savings Bank, a member ofd the Chamber Board of Directors, part of the Middlesex initiative to end homelessness, and many other community programs in the county.

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